


confront your reflection (smash what you see)

by ipreferfiction



Series: we live or die to take the throne [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Betrayal, Double Agents, F/F, F/M, Sith Empire (Star Wars), Spies & Secret Agents, Treason, it makes sense in the context of the fic, man this au has some interesting tags, there are two agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29340147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ipreferfiction/pseuds/ipreferfiction
Summary: It is brilliant, what she’s done. Becoming a double agent in truth when it was supposed to be a lie, fooling the entire Empire as she sold their secrets to the other side. And even her current status makes sense; in the wake of the Eternal Empire’s attack and Nine’s disappearance, she took advantage of their weak point and struck so that they’d never notice. Eight always did have more skill than anyone but Nine. Nine can admire that, can admire this plan that she has so carefully constructed. If it were the Republic being injured, she’d praise her for her cunning and for all the opportunities she’s taken.But it isn’t the Republic, and Cipher Nine will not let her Empire fall. She respected Eight as an agent, respects her even more now that she’s an opponent, but Eight cannot be allowed to continue. If action isn’t taken now, the Empire will lose Corellia and half a hundred other worlds. They’ll lose thewar.Cipher Eight and her soft spot will have condemned them all.[or: a betrayal, a double agent, and a loyal spy.]
Relationships: Female Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine & Female Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine, Past Female Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine/Female Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine, Vector Hyllus/Female Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine
Series: we live or die to take the throne [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153424
Kudos: 3





	confront your reflection (smash what you see)

**Author's Note:**

> revanchxst went for the Force-sensitives. i wrote a spy drama instead.  
> also known as: what happens when the suggestion that our agents meet in this 'verse is thrown out, followed by _hey, what if they used to be together back on Csilla?_
> 
> for context on this particular installation, Tharel'elshe'reth, my agent, is the canon Cipher Nine in this AU, but Averr'iis'aloh, their agent, was a fellow Cipher (Cipher Eight), and while Nine did chapters 1 and 3 of that storyline, Eight did chapter 2, got the undercover mission, and became a double agent for the Republic. for other context, Nine vanished for three years around the time of the Eternal Empire’s first attack, then reappeared allied with the Eternal Alliance, where she remains, and during the whole Nathema conspiracy fiasco, she was the false traitor instead of Theron. this is for other reasons that will probably be explored in a later installment.
> 
> title is from "broken mirrors" by rise against.

Cipher Nine has not had a name since Imperial Intelligence gave her a number and a Cipher callsign. Then again, she’s had more names than she could count: a hundred false identities and more, nicknames, titles, the things people whisper in the shadows when she’s in the field.

But as she looks over the transmission again, a part of her still feels like Tharel’elshe’reth. Averr’iis’aloh would understand; one of the few Chiss in Imperial Intelligence, and certainly the only one that could ever match Cipher Nine, she is—perhaps not a friend, not in this line of work, but an ally, and a good one.

But Cipher Eight should have let Averr’iis’aloh die, and Cipher Nine will not make the same mistake her fellow agent did. Emotions are a weakness. Nine excised them at fourteen when she joined the CSP, and again when she was sent to the Empire. Being made a Cipher was simply the final step in the process. Eight never did understand that, as good an agent as she was.

And she _was_ a good agent. Eight was Nine’s only equal among Imperial Intelligence, so Nine is far from surprised that she has managed to rise to Keeper so quickly in the years since the Eternal Empire attacked and Nine vanished. Even now, with Nine in charge of the Alliance’s intelligence network, Eight (or Keeper now, she supposes) is the sole agent Nine would consider a serious challenge against her. Nine respects her for that, and for the history they have together, from Csilla to Dromund Kaas. Eight understood Nine and likely understands her still, and Nine in turn sees Eight (all save for the weaknesses she could never leave behind; she has never been able to grasp those, not even after all these years).

And that is why Nine has spent three hours staring at this file. It doesn’t make sense; Eight has the same training and the same skills as she does, so how did she miss this? How could the Republic have gained this much ground on Hoth? Nine may not be in Imperial Intelligence anymore, but she remembers the defenses they set up. She would have expected better from Eight. A mistake like this is something she never should have made to begin with, no matter the steps she’s taking to rectify it.

And for Csan’ilir’s sake, why did it have to be Hoth? Hoth is the closest Nine has ever felt to Csilla since she left, and the two trips she's made since—one to leave Ilen'ier with the Miurani family, one to retrieve her again—have done little to quench her homesickness. It's a weakness, to be sure, but Nine has not been able to tamp down her love of the cold and the ice.

No matter. It's also not the reason Nine is staring at this report again. Four months ago, when she first received it, it had raised only a small flag, what any sort of mistake would have. Nine had discounted it, though not forgotten it, chalked it up to a mistake on Eight's end.

And then, the month prior, it had been an Imperial weapons factory, one the Republic never should have found. Top-secret and very closely guarded, it had immediately caught Nine's attention; if she had been Keeper, it never would have been found, let alone seized.

Cipher Eight was her only equal. She should not have made these missteps; the Empire should have been winning the war.

Now, as Nine examines the reports spread out before her, she has a suspicion as to why they aren't.

The current Keeper is not Cipher Nine’s only contact inside Imperial Intelligence. In fact, she has three agents who report to her directly, another two who serve as moles for the Alliance. Nine has always intended to return to Imperial Intelligence whenever the Eternal Empress makes her move on her former empire—though Nine suspects it will be some time before Empress Kallig deems it necessary—so she has kept spies there since she joined the Alliance close to four years earlier. None of them are aware that they are reporting to Cipher Nine, of course; she’s willing to bet that most of them don’t even believe that Cipher Nine _exists._ Their reports are regular and formulaic, and as not a single one of them is aware of any others, it helps her sort out which of them are liars and which are not.

So far, none of them have proved false, which leaves two options. Either every one of them has suddenly begun to lie in an identical manner—

Or Keeper’s latest report is the false one, not the five she’s gotten from her people. Eight should have no reason to lie to her; she knows that Nine is loyal to the Empire and will be until her death. And if she was unable to come up with suitable intelligence, or if some of it was too sensitive to tell Nine, she would have simply withheld it. She wouldn’t slip in little lies like these, switching troop numbers, changing strategies and movements, trying to hide the truth of the Empire’s situation. Eight is too good an agent for that, too good a Keeper. ( _Not according to the war,_ Nine’s subconscious has been telling her, and her instincts are rarely wrong.)

And if Keeper is lying to Nine like this, there could only be one reason.

Averr’iis’aloh is a traitor.

Cipher Nine has played the traitor before. The handful of months she spent leading the Alliance around in circles while they chased her down, as though she’d _ever_ have let herself be caught if she wasn’t acting, were some of the most difficult of her life. She had had to summon every ounce of training she’d ever received, and even then, the Gravestone and half the Eternal Fleet had been lost before the conspirators were dead and she had taken up her place in the Alliance once more. She knows how it feels to take on that role, and she is well aware of all the codes and messages that could be used to signal a fellow agent and let them know that it is a ruse.

Cipher Eight has not used a single one of them. Even when she was pretending to be a double agent for the Republic, she—

And it hits Nine then, staring down at the datapads.

Ardun Kothe’s body was never found. Former Jedi (that hadn’t been as big a secret as he believed), head of one of the strongest intelligence rings in the SIS, intended target of Cipher Eight, and there had been no body. How had that not raised flags? How had no one been suspicious? If Nine hadn’t been chasing down the Star Cabal, she would have demanded answers from Eight. They needed the body, and they took the word of an agent whose _kindness_ always was her weakest point.

It is brilliant, what she’s done. Becoming a double agent in truth when it was supposed to be a lie, fooling the entire Empire as she sold their secrets to the other side. And even her current status makes sense; in the wake of the Eternal Empire’s attack and Nine’s disappearance, she took advantage of their weak point and struck so that they’d never notice. Eight always did have more skill than anyone but Nine. Nine can admire that, can admire this plan that she has so carefully constructed. If it were the Republic being injured, she’d praise her for her cunning and for all the opportunities she’s taken.

But it isn’t the Republic, and Cipher Nine will not let her Empire fall. She respected Eight as an agent, respects her even more now that she’s an opponent, but Eight cannot be allowed to continue. If action isn’t taken now, the Empire will lose Corellia and half a hundred other worlds. They’ll lose the _war._

Cipher Eight and her soft spot will have condemned them all.

It takes Nine very little time to arrange what she needs. Before the day is out, she’s on a shuttle bound for Dromund Kaas—with her name scrubbed from the records, of course, and with the captain left completely unaware that he has a passenger stowed away in a mostly-sealed container in his cargo hold. The only person aware of her mission is Empress Kallig herself, and even she doesn’t know the full extent of it. Imperial Intelligence’s weaknesses are not for outsiders to know or confront. They are for its own agents to handle. That might be what stings the most about Eight’s betrayal—whatever caused her to turn her coat, she never bothered to try to fix it, just handed over the Empire’s fault lines on a silver platter. For her to have served this long without detection is a humiliation, one that even Nine will have to bear.

Four years. It took her four years to see what Eight has done. Her only comfort is that not a single agent within the Empire saw it, either, and even that speaks equally to Eight’s skill and their lack thereof.

Nine will have her work cut out for her. Eight’s mere presence assures that. But she will not fail, not now. She will not lose to a woman who has been ruled by emotion since their days in the secret police back on Csilla. She will not let the Empire lose, either.

Agents have fought and bled and died for this Empire. If it is going to be razed, it will not be by Imperial Intelligence’s Keeper. Cipher Nine will not allow that, not with all the blood she’s spilled to keep it safe.

Eight was the closest thing Nine had to a friend. It will not be enough to spare her.

Odessen is across the galaxy from Dromund Kaas, a trip that takes two weeks at best once hyperspace routes and blockades are taken into consideration. Nine is very careful to ensure that all transmissions between her and anyone within the Empire, especially Keeper’s office, are rerouted through Odessen first. It wouldn’t do to have her real movements noticed by Eight, and she knows Eight would have the skills to do it. She takes more precautions than she ever has on any mission and prays to the nine gods of Csilla that it’s enough for Eight to miss her when she crawls from the shipping container and feels her boots hit the hard ground of Dromund Kaas Spaceport. Her stealth generator is already active, movements silent as she creeps from the hangar (careful not to leave a shadow, careful not to leave a trace). Cipher Eight will not—cannot—see her coming.

Of course, Nine is a good spy, so she is already acting on the assumption that Eight knows her every movement. It’s what keeps her invisible as she slips through the spaceport’s blind spots, flickering in and out of view between security cameras and guards. Nothing gives her a second look, and after all these years, she knows that if she appears on the cameras at all, it will be as a split-second flicker in the corner of the image.

It would be enough to reveal her to Eight, though. Nine has to assume that Eight knows she’s coming here, and if she knows she’s coming, she has to know why. Nine won’t insult Eight’s intelligence; she had to have known that Nine would uncover her treachery soon enough. She will have contingencies, and she will act upon them. As Nine’s air taxi speeds through the jungle, she checks the codes she’s obtained once more. The Imperial Citadel will need to be shut down immediately, and even that is unlikely to stop whatever plans Eight has put into place.

Which, of course, is why Nine’s second stop will be Eight’s safehouse. When (and it isn’t an _if,_ Eight is too good for that) she escapes headquarters, that will be where she runs to, likely with whatever she’s managed to steal in a final effort to undo Imperial Intelligence. Whatever signal she’s planning on sending, whatever transmissions she has in store for the SIS, Nine will ensure that they don’t go through. Her day has come, as it must for every agent, every operative.

The ten minutes it takes for Nine to reach Imperial Intelligence’s headquarters, the bloody left hand of the Citadel, are ten too many. She is out of the taxi and running before it comes to a halt, her boots loud as they hit the durasteel beneath her. Headquarters is unchanged from the last time she walked through its entrance, seven years ago and preparing to run. On any other day, Nine would pause for a moment and let its blank emptiness swallow her whole and erase all that she is. Today, she has no time for that luxury.

 _Welcome home,_ she thinks to herself in the split second it takes her to input the shutdown codes, and then the Citadel itself goes dark and Nine is running again, leaping from the edge of the walkway and landing on the still-running taxi before the security measures have even finished going into effect. Eight’s address is nothing more than muscle memory to input into the airspeeder’s navicomputer, and from there, Nine counts down the seconds and the minutes as they tick by, until just before the fifth minute, the speeder comes to a smooth halt outside a rain-slick apartment in one of Kass City’s highest levels. The signal jammer is running before Nine has even stepped from the speeder and taken the few steps between the balcony and the apartment’s exterior door.

It’s locked. Within five seconds, Nine has it open.

The safehouse is plain and impersonal, with barely any furniture, let alone decorations. No signs of Cipher Eight or the name behind that identity dwell here. For a moment, as the hollow echoes of her footsteps reverberate throughout the stronghold’s hall, Nine lets herself believe that Eight really did learn to let go of her feelings, her weakness, that she became the agent she could have been.

But Cipher Eight is a traitor, and pretending otherwise will do nothing but get her killed.

Nine lets herself slip into field silence as she listens for any sounds within the stronghold. It only takes a few seconds for the slightest of noises, tapping muffled by three layers of walls and doors, hits Nine’s ears. Eight is on this floor, and Nine unholsters her blaster—no knife, no personal death for a Chiss who betrayed her duty—and steps through the nearest doorway. No Eight, but up ahead, the noises have grown stronger.

A silhouette is lit up by Dromund Kaas’ lightning-stricken sky when Nine steps around the next corner, through the next doorway, and finds herself in front of a small, sparsely-furnished room. Against the blue-grey steel of the walls and the sky, Cipher Eight hardly stands out; her skin is ashen blue, hair the color of deep ice on Csilla, the same cold tones that everything on Dromund Kaas bears (besides its blood-red banners, and Eight’s eyes—Chiss eyes, red as rubies, red as viscera—are a match for those).

“I knew it would be you,” she says in achingly familiar Cheunh, and straightens from the terminal she was bent over. Her uniform, the Keeper uniform, is as neat as her complicated hairstyle, as sharp as the way she straightens her spine when she turns to face Nine. A perfect agent, a perfect asset, all save for her one weakness. “The moment you contacted me again, I knew this would happen.”

She sounds so _tired,_ standing there in a uniform she never should have worn. Even Nine’s blaster trained on her chest doesn’t make her flinch. A note of something almost like relief colors her tone.

Cheunh is not a language of traitors. Nine’s grip tightens around the blaster.

But she switches to her mother tongue when she demands, “Why? Why would you betray Imperial Intelligence? Why would you betray your fellow agents?”

And Eight—soft Cipher Eight, with the mark of her weakness plain across her face—looks at Nine with such exhausted sorrow.

“Look at the Eradicators. Look at Balmorra. Look at the cost of Imperial victory,” she says so softly. “It's too high, Elelsher. All of it—it’s too much. I won’t serve the Sith when they have never cared about how we win our wars.”

This isn’t Cipher Eight in front of her. It’s Riisa, it’s _Iis’aloh_ , who should have died when they left Csilla behind.

 _I told you that your kindness would kill you,_ she does not say, and her blaster stays leveled at Riisa’s heart.

(Nine had been Elshe’reth and already a year into her training with the Csilla Secret Police when she had met Iis’aloh, all of fourteen and so eager to prove herself. Younger than her by a year, but just as clever and just as good as she was, her equal more than any of the other trainees. Within two months, they were being sent alone on missions; within four, they were the CSP’s favored team. Iis’aloh could have been even better than Elshe’reth, if she’d really tried, but she never did, just grinned and fell into place beside the only trainee—and later, the only operative—who could keep pace with her. Elshe’reth had enjoyed the competition, but she’d enjoyed having someone who understood her even more.

She had been sixteen, Iis’aloh a year younger, when they’d gotten an order from somewhere high up: their first serious mission, not just recon work or surveilling or training simulations. It was serious, and Elshe’reth had said as much with something dangerously close to a grin when they’d received the report and briefing. IIs’aloh had looked just as delighted; she’d been begging for a true mission even more than Elshe’reth, eager to test her sharpened skills on something real.

And the mission had gone so well. Even as teenagers, they had been _good,_ the best the CSP had seen in decades, so cornering their target and getting through his security had presented no challenge at all. Blasters set to kill, they had pushed through the final door—Elshe’reth first, Iis’aloh flanking her—and found the target huddled against the opposite wall. He had looked harmless, nothing but a terrified, hollow-cheeked man, deep blue skin dotted with bruises, grey hair hanging lank before his eyes.

Iis’aloh was supposed to be the one to take the shot. Elshe’reth had wanted to see her partner take point on this, after all, had wanted to see what she could do.

But she’d looked at her, pale skin luminous in the half-darkness of that room, and a pit had opened in Elshe’reth’s stomach. She had never hesitated in training, in any of the simulations; what was different now?

 _He’s unarmed,_ she had said. _Not any fight, let alone a good one. I’m not going to kill him; we’ll take him in alive._

She had been so ready to argue, until there was a flash of movement and the man was lunging but not for Elshe’reth, for _Iis’aloh,_ for her partner, a knife glinting in his hand.

A flash of silver, a scream, a single shot, the sound of a body hitting the ground.

And— _Iis’aloh!_ she’d snapped, unable to keep the fear from her voice, dropping to her side, reaching for the wound across her eye, only for a pale blue hand to stretch up and catch her wrist. Alive and conscious, even through the blood now staining half her face and soaking her light blue hair.

 _I didn’t see the knife,_ she’d murmured, wincing, and Elshe’reth had demanded to know why she hadn’t taken the shot.

 _That kindness is going to kill you,_ she had said when Iis’aloh had stumbled out a sentence about the way the man had been crouched against the wall, how he had just looked frail and broken.

And the other girl had looked up at her and had sworn it wouldn’t happen again.

 _Besides, you’ll always have my back._ )

“Core names are not for the use of traitors,” Nine snaps, and _hurt_ flashes through Riisa’s red eyes. But how could she expect anything else? After everything they were, after _Csilla,_ Riisa should know that Nine’s leniency will only go so far. “Imperial Intelligence runs the Empire, not the Sith, as you should know. And they taught us about acceptable margins of loss back on Csilla, _Riisa,_ or is that something else you’ve forgotten?”

She needs to control herself. She is a Cipher, her emotions should be under an iron control. She should _have_ no emotions. Gods, even now, even after all these years, Riisa knows how to undo her.

“Acceptable margins don’t exist, not like this, Cipher Nine,” Riisa replies, and it tastes like a condemnation Nine can’t understand. “And you should know that Imperial Intelligence hasn’t run anything since long before the Star Cabal.”

“I destroyed the Star Cabal, or did you forget that while you were busy letting Ardun Kothe go free? This empire was _ours._ We could have shaped it however we wanted, and you chose to betray it.”

And Riisa closes her eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath.

“Yes, Ardun Kothe has been my handler since the end of that mission. Is that what you wanted to hear?” Her face is twisted with frustration, tiredness clinging to her frame. “I didn’t _want_ to shape the Empire, Cipher. I don’t owe my loyalty to a government who treats its citizens as nothing but numbers. The Republic—it _cares._ It cares about all its people. The Empire never has, and it doesn’t matter what changes any of us make. It never will.”

Nine has never been able to understand this incessant _need_ Riisa has to grant humanity to the entire galaxy. Their training should have eliminated it, and yet Riisa chose to stifle herself with _emotions_ as if they would serve her well.

“If the Republic cared so much, Theron Shan wouldn't still be with the Alliance, and I wouldn't be training former Republic operatives,” she says to Riisa, voice as flat as she can make it. “Of course we're numbers. Everyone in the galaxy is a number; why does it matter so much to you?”

“There’s more to sentience than numbers, Nine.” Riisa’s voice has no right to sound like this, like she _cares._ “There’s more to _life_ than numbers. Your daughter proved that to you, didn’t she? What if she was one of the Empire’s casualties?”

 _No._ Ilen’ier is safe and _secret;_ Riisa never should have known about her, let alone the single point of weakness she created in Nine.

But Riisa is still talking right over Nine’s tumult. “I know you’re going to kill me. I won’t stop you; I don’t blame you for doing your duty like I did mine. I’ve already done everything I could, as far as contingencies went. I just—I have one request before I die,” she says, voice tight with some sadness Nine doesn’t know and can’t comprehend.

Nine’s blaster does not waver from Riisa’s heart when she tersely asks, “What?”

“You blocked the transmission I was sending before the personal messages I included could be sent. I owe Vector a final message before I die, and if I can’t send it, I can ask you to deliver it, at least.”

On the shelf nearest to Riisa’s head, a row of holos is lined up, little things Nine paid no attention to in her focus on apprehending the traitor. Now, her gaze flicks sideways, catches and holds on one of them.

And there stands Vector Hyllus in that holo, grinning softly down at Riisa, her head on his shoulder. She is smiling back at him in turn with such unabashed _adoration_ in her eyes; it’s the happiest Nine has seen her since Csilla. Of course they’d meet. Of course that soft spot of Vector’s would find a match in Riisa.

“What did you just hand over to the SIS?” Nine demands, focusing back on Riisa—on her _target,_ a dead Chiss walking.

And Riisa _smiles._

“Not as much as I had hoped to. You caught me too quickly for that. But by now, they’ll have received everything I sent. Once they get through decryption, they’ll be acting on it, on _all_ of it.”

“The Imperial Intelligence archives,” Nine says flatly, and it isn’t a question. Riisa is very, very good at her job. She would go for the throat of the Empire, for what would cripple it the fastest.

“Seventy-three percent completion before the transmission was blocked.” Riisa sounds _proud._ Nine cannot find fault in that, not when in fifteen minutes she has done more than any Republic spy in the Empire’s history. The Citadel is shut down already, enacting its protocols for the highest level of security breach, but it won’t be enough. Even Nine’s damage control might not be quite enough. Oh, in the long term, they’ll recover, but right now?

Legate will be a legend in the SIS until the galaxy is dust.

“I respected you,” Nine says to Riisa, and watches the microexpressions flit across her face. “I’ll give your message to him, but I’ll do you no other favors.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll let me record one,” Riisa says, a little wan, a little wry. Nine doesn’t reply except for her finger to twitch on the blaster’s trigger.

“No, I didn’t expect so. In that case…” She closes her eyes and steadies herself. “Tell him I love him, and I’m sorry we never had a real chance. I hope—I hope he finds someone more worthy of his heart.”

She looks so resigned that it’s hard to believe she was Nine’s equal once, one of the best agents in Imperial Intelligence. She isn’t even trying to fight; she just reaches into her uniform and unloads her blasters, all her knives, even the slim mechanism that powers her stealth generator. Even that fire from earlier has abandoned her as she stands unarmed before Nine’s blaster.

Riisa has been lying to them all for close to a decade. This is the end of her mission, relief from a constant act of subterfuge. That Nine _can_ comprehend, as familiar with undercover operations as she is. What she can’t understand is why she isn’t even _trying_ to fight. Nine would give her life for the Sith Empire or her people in the Ascendancy a hundred times over, but she would at least go down fighting. And Nine knows Riisa well enough to tell that the weapons on the floor around her are the only ones she has.

“My only regret is that this will hurt Vector,” Riisa says softly. “I’ve been resigned to this fate for years, Cipher. No one escapes Imperial Intelligence, not even me.”

Cipher Nine pulls the trigger.

And Riisa hits the floor.

(It isn’t mercy that causes the blaster bolt to go through her shoulder rather than her heart. Cipher Nine has never learned the taste of mercy, and handing over a traitor to Empress Acina would be far from the _merciful_ thing to do. Sith do not care for treachery, especially not on this scale, not when it risks their empire as well as their lives. The Empire will try her, and the Chiss Ascendancy will be her executioner. That is not a mercy.

Cipher Nine is a very good liar.

The part of her that should have died years ago, that awoke when she first saw her daughter and felt _love_ for her—it is the same part that loved Averr’iis’aloh before they left Csilla, the part that didn’t understand Riisa’s insistence that she could not love a number when they were named Ciphers, the part of her that had a _name_ once.

And Cipher Nine is the best agent in Imperial Intelligence, but even she doesn’t always make the right call.)


End file.
